Russophiles in New York can get a taste of the Motherland in Little Odessa (named after the Ukrainian city that was once part of Imperial Russia), an insular neighborhood just blocks from Brooklyn's Brighton Beach boardwalk that's a perfect microcosm of the former Soviet Union.

Once a summer getaway for wealthy New Yorkers, Brighton Beach saw an influx of Jewish immigrants escaping fascism and Nazism in Europe around the time of World War II. The 1970s brought a second wave of Ukrainian Jews from the time the Soviet Union relaxed its immigration policies, through its dissolution.

The neighborhood was filled with young families once again, and it became known as "Little Odessa," after the port city on the Black Sea.